Potholes on the Road to Electric Cars

by Lamar Johnson (Politico) ... The Department of Labor plans to add lithium-ion batteries to a list of products whose components are known to be made using child or forced labor, write E&E News' Jael Holzman and David Iaconangelo.

The department made the designation because many lithium-ion batteries use cobalt in their production.

About 70 percent of the world's cobalt is mined in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and a 2016 Amnesty International report found that tens of thousands of Congolese children were working in mines for up to 12 hours per day.

China is the world's largest cobalt processor, while the U.S. is home to zero cobalt processing plants.

The report also cites China's use of forced labor in the production of polysilicon, a key component of solar panels. The import of solar panels using polysilicon from the Xinjiang region is banned in the U.S.

While auto companies are moving toward cobalt-free batteries, EVs with cobalt-component batteries are expected to make up parts of the market, at least in the short term. READ MORE

Excerpt from Fox News: A top Florida state official warned Thursday that firefighters have battled a number of fires caused by electric vehicle (EV) batteries waterlogged from Hurricane Ian.

EV batteries that have been waterlogged in the wake of the hurricane are at risk of corrosion, which could lead to unexpected fires, according to Jimmy Patronis, the state's top financial officer and fire marshal.

"There’s a ton of EVs disabled from Ian. As those batteries corrode, fires start," Patronis tweeted Thursday. "That’s a new challenge that our firefighters haven’t faced before. At least on this kind of scale." READ MORE

Excerpt from Transport Energy Strategies: Although an industrial success story when it comes to the historical cost reduction for the production thereof, most necessary as battery packs usually make up half of the price of EVs, batteries have also come into focus regarding safety, a crucial issue in our risk-adverse societies.

Besides the massive battery pack-induced vehicle weight increase, quite spectacular for the largest models, e-SUVs or e-Hummers, passing the 3-ton or even the 4-ton mark, which makes impact more dreadful for unfortunate pedestrians or smaller cars that could be crossing the EV trajectory, the risk of battery fire is what is catching the attention.

Immediate risk in transport of EVs by ship: A Norwegian shipowner suffered in 2022 the sinking of one of its vessels, carrying some 4,000 vehicles, many of them EVs, following a fire on board. Although the origin of the fire is not yet ascertained, batteries have a track record of dramatic flammability, widely reported about in social media, and this shipowner is now refusing to transport EVs, quite an issue for Norway, the premier destination for electromobility in Europe. Wary shipowners, such as CMA-CGM, one of the top five global sea operators, are even considering transporting EVs in refrigerated containers. Not going in the direction of making EV more affordable, one key issue for the moment for the electromobility market pick-up. Good news would be that imports in the Global West from faraway China would be less competitive than locally manufactured vehicles, stretching the point real thin, though.

Delayed risk: Batteries do not like shocks, a risk enhancer, if not an originator, when it comes to flammability, it seems. Road accidents happen, metal crumping or torn steel fortunately the largest consequence of these chance encounters:

In many accidents, the significant room occupied by the battery pack in EV frames, when it is not the intricate embedment therein (like in recent Tesla models), implies it may likely suffer from the shock. First, evaluating the repair cost proves to be difficult, as EV carmakers do not like close inspection of this crucial element, secrecy must prevail in a fiercely competitive arena. Second, even if the repair is straightforward, the cost may not be small, if full replacement of the battery pack is considered, out of precautionary principle, a strong feature of the car industry. Third, to complete this bleak picture, recent surveys show insurers get so wary about the possibility of damage to the battery pack in the crashes that repair may not even be considered, and elimination of the risk thus decided: destination scrapyard. The UK reference recycler of batteries maintains that 95% of batteries could be repaired, rather than disposed of.

With all of the above, not only will insurance contracts get more expensive, again not good news for the affordability of EVs, but direct disposal goes against the policy trend to make goods more serviceable and repairable, in the context of turning our linear economy into a more circular one, a systemic change that could greatly help to save more and more scarce, thus costly, resources. READ MORE